Continuing a short series of verse on Christ: Hard it is, very hard, To travel up the slow and read more

Continuing a short series of verse on Christ: Hard it is, very hard, To travel up the slow and stony road To Calvary, to redeem mankind; far better To make but one resplendent miracle, Lean through the cloud, lift the right hand of power And with a sudden lightning smite the world perfect. Yet this was not God's way, Who had the power, But set it by, choosing the cross, the thorn, The sorrowful wounds. Something there is, perhaps, That power destroys in passing, something supreme, To whose great value in the eyes of God That cross, that thorn, and those five wounds bear witness.

Feast of Hugh, Carthusian Monk, Bishop of Lincoln, 1200 The Way is not a religion: Christianity is the end read more

Feast of Hugh, Carthusian Monk, Bishop of Lincoln, 1200 The Way is not a religion: Christianity is the end of religion. "Religion" means here the division between sacred and secular concerns, other-worldliness, man's reaching toward God in a way which projects his own thoughts.

Feast of Luke the Evangelist Beginning a short series about the early church: Now if all these things read more

Feast of Luke the Evangelist Beginning a short series about the early church: Now if all these things should come to pass, the determined expectation of which caused the Jews to reject Christ -- if he should actually appear, with miraculous splendor, as the restorer of the Jewish nation, and city, and Temple, reigning over the whole world as a great earthly sovereign, and reserving peculiar privileges for his own nation -- if, I say, all these expectations should be fulfilled, to which the Jews have so long and so obstinately clung, surely this would not be so much a conversion of the Jews to Christianity as a conversion of Christians to Judaism; it would not be bringing the Jews to the gospel by overcoming their national prejudices, but rather carrying back the gospel to meet the Jewish prejudices; it would be destroying the spiritual character of our religion, and establishing those erroneous views which have hitherto caused the Jews to reject it. We may conclude, then, that all the promises and predictions in Scripture relative to the future glories of the Jews and of Jerusalem, are to be understood of the Christian church, of which the Jewish church was a figure; and all that is said of feasting, and splendor, and wealth, and worldly greatness and enjoyment, is to be interpreted spiritually of the inward comfort and peace of mind, and "joy of the Holy Ghost", which is promised to sincere Christians in this life, and of the unspeakable happiness prepared for them after death.

Holy Saturday Commemoration of George Augustus Selwyn, first Bishop of New Zealand, 1878 Sing, men and angels, sing, for God read more

Holy Saturday Commemoration of George Augustus Selwyn, first Bishop of New Zealand, 1878 Sing, men and angels, sing, for God our Life and King Has given us light and spring and morning breaking Now may man's soul arise as kinsman to the skies, And God unseals his eyes to an awaking. Sing, creatures, sing; the dust that lives by lure and lust Is kindled by the thrust of life undying; This hope our Master bare has made all fortunes fair, And man can on and dare, his death defying. After the winter snows a wind of healing blows, And thorns put forth a rose, and lilies cheer us; Life's everlasting spring has robbed death of his sting, Henceforth a cry can bring our Master near us.

If a man fights his way through his doubts to the conviction that Jesus Christ is Lord, he has attained read more

If a man fights his way through his doubts to the conviction that Jesus Christ is Lord, he has attained to a certainty that the man who unthinkingly accepts things can never reach.

If New Testament Christianity is to reappear today with its power and joy and courage, men must recapture the basic read more

If New Testament Christianity is to reappear today with its power and joy and courage, men must recapture the basic conviction that this is a Visited planet. It is not enough to express formal belief in the "Incarnation" or in the "Divinity of. Christ"; the staggering truth must be accepted afresh -- that in this vast, mysterious universe, of which we are an almost infinitesimal part, the great Mystery, Whom we call God, has visited our planet in Person. It is from this conviction that there springs unconquerable certainty and unquenchable faith and hope. It is not enough to believe theoretically that Jesus was both God and Man; not enough to admire, respect, and even worship Him; it is not even enough to try to follow Him. The reason for the insufficiency of these things is that the modern intelligent mind, which has had its horizons widened in dozens of different ways, has got to be shocked afresh by the audacious central Fact -- that, as a sober matter of history, God became one of us.

Others again, perhaps truly awakened by the Spirit of God to devote themselves wholly to piety and the service of read more

Others again, perhaps truly awakened by the Spirit of God to devote themselves wholly to piety and the service of God, yet making too much haste to have the glory of saints, the elements of fallen nature -- selfishness, envy, pride, and wrath -- could secretly go along with them. For to seek for eminence and significancy in grace is but like seeking for eminence and significancy in nature. And the old man can relish glory and distinction in religion as well as in common life, and will be content to undergo as many labours, pains, and self-denials for the sake of religious, as for the sake of secular glory.

Feast of Leo the Great, Bishop of Rome, 461 There was no point of controversy between Jesus and the read more

Feast of Leo the Great, Bishop of Rome, 461 There was no point of controversy between Jesus and the Jews; Jesus brought no new doctrine unto them. Jesus said, What the masters in Israel teach, what the Pharisees and the Scribes teach, is perfectly correct. There was no dogma which was the cause of controversy between Jesus and the nation; there was no new custom that Jesus introduced: He went into the Temple every day, He observed the ordinances and festivals of Israel. What was the subject of dispute and controversy between Jesus and the Jews? It was no doctrine, it was no innovation, it was Jesus Himself whom they rejected. There was an antipathy in them to the person of Jesus: it was the Lord Himself whom they hated, because they hated the Father... But Jesus knew... that it was because He was one with the Father, because He was the express image of His being, because He was the perfect manifestation of the character of God, that they hated Him; and therefore Jesus was pained, not because they hated Him, but because they hated in Him the Father.

Feast of Joseph of Nazareth Continuing a Lenten series on prayer: Jeremy Taylor gives us some fundamental rules for read more

Feast of Joseph of Nazareth Continuing a Lenten series on prayer: Jeremy Taylor gives us some fundamental rules for prayer. And the chief of them is this: "Do not lie to God." And that curt piece of advice, so bluntly thrown down for us, is indeed all-important. Do not burn false fire upon God's altar; do not pose and pretend, either to Him or to yourself, in your religious exercises; do not say more than you mean, or use exagerated language that goes beyond the facts, when speaking to Him whose word is truth.